Re: PGA Winners
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 2:52 pm
Ben Affleck's omission in Oscar's Director category remains this season's most curious wrinkle. And I wonder if it might divide prognosticators into those focused on reading solely this year's tea leaves, and those with a more historic view of the Oscars.
Because if you look at the latter, it's REALLY hard to bet solidly on Argo as your Best Picture frontrunner. But the Ben Affleck pity party narrative really seems to have set in, a narrative which I'm really over, by the way, given that Affleck already has an Oscar, was nominated again this year, and is a gazillionaire with a career most directors would kill for. Given the way people are responding to his Oscar omission, you'd think he just had both his legs chopped off.
I'm curious to know from those Oscar-watching at the time..did Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard receive the same kind of attention after their shocking director omissions? Because to me, the whole idea that voters will choose Argo as Best Picture as a way to AMEND FOR Affleck's snub doesn't seem to hold up very well when one looks at historical precedent.
Not only did The Color Purple and Apollo 13 NOT win Best Picture, they actually both did pretty badly on Oscar night. The Color Purple, of course, became Oscar's biggest loser, losing a lot of categories where it would have seemed competitive. And as for Apollo 13, it missed not only its PGA-endorsed Best Picture race, but SAG-winning Ed Harris, Score, and Visual Effects, all categories where it might have reasonably triumphed.
Which is to say, past stunner Director omissions haven't led much to the sympathy Best Picture votes a lot of people assume Argo will get; in fact, they've generally signaled weakness for the films.
On a similar note, I remember something someone (Dennis Bee?) said about predicting against The Color Purple in Best Picture -- that when he went through and noticed the number of categories he DIDN'T think it would win, it didn't seem to suggest a strong Best Picture winner. And that's my other feeling about Argo -- I still don't think it ends up with that many trophies in the end. Alan Arkin's role feels too lightweight, the score doesn't seem sweeping enough, and the movie just doesn't seem loud enough to snag either sound trophy. So we're basically talking about Film Editing (a probable winner), and if the movie's REALLY strong, MAYBE it wins Adapted Screenplay, though with Lincoln and Silver Linings on the ballot, that's fierce competition, and I can't say I give Argo the leg up at this point. Even when you're generous, that's not a lot of categories to support a Best Picture win.
But...at the same time, I also can't imagine people otherwise planning to vote for Argo NOT voting for the film just because the directors branch didn't cite Affleck. If it has strong enough support, eighty years (okay, okay, seventy-nine) of precedent won't torpedo a movie that's otherwise popular enough. But at the moment, I still think this race is really fluid.
Because if you look at the latter, it's REALLY hard to bet solidly on Argo as your Best Picture frontrunner. But the Ben Affleck pity party narrative really seems to have set in, a narrative which I'm really over, by the way, given that Affleck already has an Oscar, was nominated again this year, and is a gazillionaire with a career most directors would kill for. Given the way people are responding to his Oscar omission, you'd think he just had both his legs chopped off.
I'm curious to know from those Oscar-watching at the time..did Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard receive the same kind of attention after their shocking director omissions? Because to me, the whole idea that voters will choose Argo as Best Picture as a way to AMEND FOR Affleck's snub doesn't seem to hold up very well when one looks at historical precedent.
Not only did The Color Purple and Apollo 13 NOT win Best Picture, they actually both did pretty badly on Oscar night. The Color Purple, of course, became Oscar's biggest loser, losing a lot of categories where it would have seemed competitive. And as for Apollo 13, it missed not only its PGA-endorsed Best Picture race, but SAG-winning Ed Harris, Score, and Visual Effects, all categories where it might have reasonably triumphed.
Which is to say, past stunner Director omissions haven't led much to the sympathy Best Picture votes a lot of people assume Argo will get; in fact, they've generally signaled weakness for the films.
On a similar note, I remember something someone (Dennis Bee?) said about predicting against The Color Purple in Best Picture -- that when he went through and noticed the number of categories he DIDN'T think it would win, it didn't seem to suggest a strong Best Picture winner. And that's my other feeling about Argo -- I still don't think it ends up with that many trophies in the end. Alan Arkin's role feels too lightweight, the score doesn't seem sweeping enough, and the movie just doesn't seem loud enough to snag either sound trophy. So we're basically talking about Film Editing (a probable winner), and if the movie's REALLY strong, MAYBE it wins Adapted Screenplay, though with Lincoln and Silver Linings on the ballot, that's fierce competition, and I can't say I give Argo the leg up at this point. Even when you're generous, that's not a lot of categories to support a Best Picture win.
But...at the same time, I also can't imagine people otherwise planning to vote for Argo NOT voting for the film just because the directors branch didn't cite Affleck. If it has strong enough support, eighty years (okay, okay, seventy-nine) of precedent won't torpedo a movie that's otherwise popular enough. But at the moment, I still think this race is really fluid.